9th World Futurological Congress
2016-2018 (we expect difficulties)
<http://futurological-congress.com/>futurological-congress.com
"The Eighth World Futurological Congress was held
in Costa Rica. To tell the truth, I never would
have gone to Nounas if it hadn't been for
Professor Tarantoga, who gave me clearly to
understand that this was expected of me. He also
said pointedly that space travel nowadays was an
escape from the problems of Earth. That is, one
took off for the stars in the hope that the worst
would happen and be done with in one's absence.
And indeed I couldn't deny that more than once I
had peered anxiously out the porthole-especially
when returning from a long voyage-to see whether
or not our planet resembled a burnt potato. So I
didn't argue the point with Tarantoga, but only
remarked that, really, I wasn't much of an expert
on futurology. His reply was that hardly anyone
knows a thing about pumping, and yet we don't
stand idly by when we hear the cry of 'Man the
pumps!'"
-excerpt from: The Futurological Congress (from the memoirs of Ijon Tichy)
Published in Polish in 1971, English translation 1974
The 9th Futurological Congress is
-A journey with familiar spirits.
-A temporary reality with a nomadic appearance
that as a whole is not bound to a certain place
or time.
-A testing ground for ideas, searching for
glimpses of utopia and an aesthetics of
possibilities.
-A wide-open playground for imagination and
future scenarios in old, new and adapted forms of
speculation.
-Exposing tensions between notions of utopia,
today's reality, and histories past. We prefer to
see these three notions as circular time loops,
rather than accepting that the future is only
that which is ahead of us.
-Interrogating the mechanisms of control, command
and obedience over peoples, bodies, and nature in
the name of an ideology-even if it is disguised
as an utopia.
-Exploring how historical material reaches the
present and turns into the future, and which
changes it undergoes in this very process when it
becomes part of the mental landscape.
-An open, rhizomatic structure; a growing and
living archive in motion; a future database
storing the proceedings of the 9th Futurological
Congress, but also fictional accounts, and all
manners of dreams.
-Intrinsically collaborative, looking for
partners and supporters, and attempting to
integrate all fields that contemplate ideas from
and about the future.
-Held together/documented/archived/developed both
online and physically over a period of two years.
<http://futurological-congress.com>futurological-congress.com will
become an online place for debate and exchange,
considering the experiences and commenting on
them, proposing and thinking all the time.
Narration is supposed to sneak in, too, sometimes
via the back door.
Some of the themes to be explored in the 9th Futurological Congress are:
The future of.
Animals, Apple, Art, Borders, Collectivity,
Conversation, Craft, Difference, Domination,
Drugs, Energy, Fiction, Food, Gender, Geography,
Hegemony, History, Images, Labor, Language, Love,
Nature, Money, Memory, Past, Play, Politics,
Race, Resourcefulness, Science, Stupidity,
Theatre, Travel, Uncertainty, War, Weather,
Writing
The chairpersons of the 9th Futurological Congress are:
Julieta Aranda
Paolo Chiasera
Mareike Dittmer
Director at large
Ijon Tichy
With the invaluable participation of:
Karen Archey, Michael Bracewell, Benjamin
Bratton, Ory Dessau, Susanne von Falkenhausen,
Paul Feigelfeld, Natasha Ginwala, Francesco Gori,
Raphael Gygax, Ed Keller, Adam Kleinman, Chus
Martínez, Antonia Majaca, Daniel Muzyczuk, Pedro
Neves Marques, Paulina Olowska, Filipa Ramos,
Vivian Sky Rehberg, Rory Rowan, Mohammad Salemmy,
Marcus Steinweg, Jennifer Teets, Ana Teixeira
Pinto, Anton Vidokle, and Joanna Warsza
(amongst many other that will come on board over the next two years)
Hoping very much that you too will become part of the future,
Sincerely,
Ijon Tichy
For further information about the 9th
Futurological Congress, and to receive our
newsletter, please visit:
<http://futurological-congress.com/>futurological-congress.com or
write us at
<mailto:info at futurological-congress.com>info at futurological-congress.com.